7 ms·

It's unlawful for you to visit the Wikileaks site. https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787749893649600512 https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/status/7

by sverige 10y ago

It's unlawful for you to visit the Wikileaks site. https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787749893649600512 https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/status/7877498936496005...

Mikeb85 10y ago
Well, it's nice to see they no longer operate under the illusion of not being state-controlled.
leereeves 10y ago
Is it really unlawful or did CNN lie about that?
- sverige 10y ago
  Haha, sorry, should have added the /s to the end. Of course CNN lied. It's what they do.
  - briandear 10y ago
    Funny too because the argument is that Hillary wasn't negligent with classified data, thus why would Podesta emails be unlawful to read? Either information is classified and Hillary was criminally negligent or it's not and therefore nothing 'unlawful' about WikiLeaks. More interesting that CNN thinks they can read them but the public can not. Media organizations have no security clearances and thus are subject to the same access as anyone else.
    - leereeves 10y ago
      "It's different for the media." Oh CNN. Proving that those who say the media thinks they're above the rest of us are right.
      - snowwrestler 10y ago
        Well to be fair, media organizations like CNN have legal departments staffed with experts ready to fight on this type of stuff. You and I probably do not. There is also the famous Pentagon Papers case, which to my knowledge rests on the "freedom of the press" language in the First Amendment. That said, this was a stupid thing for the CNN anchor to say. Regardless of the law, no federal prosecutor is going to waste their time trying to find and prosecute every U.S. citizen who visits the Wikileaks website.
        Mikeb85 10y ago
        Nope, but some of the people who watch CNN will be scared enough to not visit, and thus miss out on seeing the evidence of corruption...
    - strictnein 10y ago
      The number of media members who think "Freedom of the Press" is about them is astounding. It was about the printing press and the ability to print what you wanted and, just as importantly, not be forced to print the things you didn't.
- deleted 10y ago
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- deleted 10y ago
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- strictnein 10y ago
  It's really just that Chris Cuomo has a law degree from Yale that apparently didn't teach him much about the law.
- steamer25 10y ago
  The anchor is tweeting about his side of the story: https://twitter.com/ChrisCuomo https://twitter.com/ChrisCuomo . E.g., https://twitter.com/ChrisCuomo/status/788025611730227201 https://twitter.com/ChrisCuomo/status/788025611730227201 I am not a lawyer but I'd say this is a legal gray area. The leaker probably broke a law. E.g., hacking Podesta's private emails would have been illegal under computer fraud and abuse. It's alternately possible that the leaker had legal access but breached contract to release the data publicly. Now that the information has been leaked, it's hard to say that it's clearly illegal for John Q. Public to access what Wikileaks has made publicly available. The anchor is unable to point to a specific statute in his tweet above and also mentions that it hasn't been tested in court to his knowledge. A central theme of the leaks so far is that large segments of the media have been overly cooperative with the Clinton campaign in spite of feigned objectivity. This HN comment has curated some links to primary evidence https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12722664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12722664 . Take a quick perusal and you'll be about as informed as anyone on the answer to your question.
  - throwaway287391 10y ago
    It seems like his tweet defends the possibility of it being illegal, but not the idea that somehow it could possibly be legal for CNN & "the media" while still illegal for everyone else, which seems like the most absurd part to me. I guess he never explicitly said it was legal for CNN -- maybe he was claiming that CNN is generously taking on all that legal risk so the rest of us don't have to?
  - criley2 10y ago
    >A central theme of the leaks so far is that large segments of the media have been overly cooperative with the Clinton campaign in spite of feigned objectivity. This is a nice bit of propaganda you've put forth here. Here's a Harvard study into the majority of the 2016 election coverage including primaries which shows a demonstrably strong bias in the media pro-Trump and anti-Clinton and demonstrates that Clinton has received a FAR more harsh relationship with the major press. http://shorensteincenter.org/pre-primary-news-coverage-2016-trump-clinton-sanders/ http://shorensteincenter.org/pre-primary-news-coverage-2016-... http://shorensteincenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/figure-7.gif http://shorensteincenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/figu... It demonstrates that coverage of Clinton was on average negative about her for the entirety of 2015. It demonstrates that Trump enjoyed a very positive and cushy relationship with newsmedia who combined to give him hundreds of millions USD of free exposure. I would argue that Clinton has had mostly negative coverage up until the end of September 2016.
- HNaTTY 10y ago
  Popehat wrote a post about that. TLDR, Cuomo is wrong. https://popehat.com/2016/10/17/no-it-is-not-illegal-to-read-wikileaks/ https://popehat.com/2016/10/17/no-it-is-not-illegal-to-read-...
frankydp 10y ago
Sarcasm aside. There is a caveat to the legality of classified materials, usually you must have been "entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of". Which alludes to the fact that you would first have to have been read in, or taken the material that you knew was classified. There is also a "requirement" to "knowingly" cause harm. I put these in quotes because the wording and the enforcement of that requirement has been in flux and selective. Also relevant is that gross negligence would also meet the requirement. I guess a creative prosecutor could challenge that visiting wikileaks would be knowingly removing the material from the server, but it would probably be beyond difficult to meet all of the guidelines for prosecution. That being said. If you do currently hold a clearance, visiting Wikileaks is a violation of your NDA/ReadIn, Employment Agreement, and the UCMJ for service members.
- Redoubts 10y ago
  > That being said. If you do currently hold a clearance, visiting Wikileaks is a violation of your NDA/ReadIn, Employment Agreement, and the UCMJ for service members. Interesting. Could you explain that more?
  - jonwachob91 10y ago
    I never saw anything in writing, but after the Bradley Manning leaks we got a SHIT TON of briefs about not visiting WL, no looking at the leaked docs, and a whole lot of other "don'ts". Never heard of anyone visiting the site after that, and never heard of any shit rolling down from people violating the orders.
  - _spoonman 10y ago
    In order to access classified information, you must posses two things: 1) the appropriate clearance level (confidential, secret, top secret) 2) a need to know So even possessing the appropriate clearance level doesn't give you the right to just start reading anything that interests you on a classified network. You're supposed to have a "need to know" in case you're questioned about it. We always get stuff here (contractor on AFB) about "don't read this or that" or else you could be in trouble. But I've never heard of anyone actually getting in trouble.

by sverige 10y ago

It's unlawful for you to visit the Wikileaks site. https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787749893649600512 https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/status/7877498936496005...

Mikeb85 10y ago

Well, it's nice to see they no longer operate under the illusion of not being state-controlled.

leereeves 10y ago

Is it really unlawful or did CNN lie about that?

sverige 10y ago
Haha, sorry, should have added the /s to the end. Of course CNN lied. It's what they do.
- briandear 10y ago
  Funny too because the argument is that Hillary wasn't negligent with classified data, thus why would Podesta emails be unlawful to read? Either information is classified and Hillary was criminally negligent or it's not and therefore nothing 'unlawful' about WikiLeaks. More interesting that CNN thinks they can read them but the public can not. Media organizations have no security clearances and thus are subject to the same access as anyone else.
  - leereeves 10y ago
    "It's different for the media." Oh CNN. Proving that those who say the media thinks they're above the rest of us are right.
    - snowwrestler 10y ago
      Well to be fair, media organizations like CNN have legal departments staffed with experts ready to fight on this type of stuff. You and I probably do not. There is also the famous Pentagon Papers case, which to my knowledge rests on the "freedom of the press" language in the First Amendment. That said, this was a stupid thing for the CNN anchor to say. Regardless of the law, no federal prosecutor is going to waste their time trying to find and prosecute every U.S. citizen who visits the Wikileaks website.
      - Mikeb85 10y ago
        Nope, but some of the people who watch CNN will be scared enough to not visit, and thus miss out on seeing the evidence of corruption...
  - strictnein 10y ago
    The number of media members who think "Freedom of the Press" is about them is astounding. It was about the printing press and the ability to print what you wanted and, just as importantly, not be forced to print the things you didn't.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
strictnein 10y ago
It's really just that Chris Cuomo has a law degree from Yale that apparently didn't teach him much about the law.
steamer25 10y ago
The anchor is tweeting about his side of the story: https://twitter.com/ChrisCuomo https://twitter.com/ChrisCuomo . E.g., https://twitter.com/ChrisCuomo/status/788025611730227201 https://twitter.com/ChrisCuomo/status/788025611730227201 I am not a lawyer but I'd say this is a legal gray area. The leaker probably broke a law. E.g., hacking Podesta's private emails would have been illegal under computer fraud and abuse. It's alternately possible that the leaker had legal access but breached contract to release the data publicly. Now that the information has been leaked, it's hard to say that it's clearly illegal for John Q. Public to access what Wikileaks has made publicly available. The anchor is unable to point to a specific statute in his tweet above and also mentions that it hasn't been tested in court to his knowledge. A central theme of the leaks so far is that large segments of the media have been overly cooperative with the Clinton campaign in spite of feigned objectivity. This HN comment has curated some links to primary evidence https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12722664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12722664 . Take a quick perusal and you'll be about as informed as anyone on the answer to your question.
- throwaway287391 10y ago
  It seems like his tweet defends the possibility of it being illegal, but not the idea that somehow it could possibly be legal for CNN & "the media" while still illegal for everyone else, which seems like the most absurd part to me. I guess he never explicitly said it was legal for CNN -- maybe he was claiming that CNN is generously taking on all that legal risk so the rest of us don't have to?
- criley2 10y ago
  >A central theme of the leaks so far is that large segments of the media have been overly cooperative with the Clinton campaign in spite of feigned objectivity. This is a nice bit of propaganda you've put forth here. Here's a Harvard study into the majority of the 2016 election coverage including primaries which shows a demonstrably strong bias in the media pro-Trump and anti-Clinton and demonstrates that Clinton has received a FAR more harsh relationship with the major press. http://shorensteincenter.org/pre-primary-news-coverage-2016-trump-clinton-sanders/ http://shorensteincenter.org/pre-primary-news-coverage-2016-... http://shorensteincenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/figure-7.gif http://shorensteincenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/figu... It demonstrates that coverage of Clinton was on average negative about her for the entirety of 2015. It demonstrates that Trump enjoyed a very positive and cushy relationship with newsmedia who combined to give him hundreds of millions USD of free exposure. I would argue that Clinton has had mostly negative coverage up until the end of September 2016.
HNaTTY 10y ago
Popehat wrote a post about that. TLDR, Cuomo is wrong. https://popehat.com/2016/10/17/no-it-is-not-illegal-to-read-wikileaks/ https://popehat.com/2016/10/17/no-it-is-not-illegal-to-read-...

frankydp 10y ago

Sarcasm aside. There is a caveat to the legality of classified materials, usually you must have been "entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of". Which alludes to the fact that you would first have to have been read in, or taken the material that you knew was classified. There is also a "requirement" to "knowingly" cause harm. I put these in quotes because the wording and the enforcement of that requirement has been in flux and selective. Also relevant is that gross negligence would also meet the requirement. I guess a creative prosecutor could challenge that visiting wikileaks would be knowingly removing the material from the server, but it would probably be beyond difficult to meet all of the guidelines for prosecution. That being said. If you do currently hold a clearance, visiting Wikileaks is a violation of your NDA/ReadIn, Employment Agreement, and the UCMJ for service members.

Redoubts 10y ago
> That being said. If you do currently hold a clearance, visiting Wikileaks is a violation of your NDA/ReadIn, Employment Agreement, and the UCMJ for service members. Interesting. Could you explain that more?
- jonwachob91 10y ago
  I never saw anything in writing, but after the Bradley Manning leaks we got a SHIT TON of briefs about not visiting WL, no looking at the leaked docs, and a whole lot of other "don'ts". Never heard of anyone visiting the site after that, and never heard of any shit rolling down from people violating the orders.
- _spoonman 10y ago
  In order to access classified information, you must posses two things: 1) the appropriate clearance level (confidential, secret, top secret) 2) a need to know So even possessing the appropriate clearance level doesn't give you the right to just start reading anything that interests you on a classified network. You're supposed to have a "need to know" in case you're questioned about it. We always get stuff here (contractor on AFB) about "don't read this or that" or else you could be in trouble. But I've never heard of anyone actually getting in trouble.